Top Woods effect on sound
- Thread starter mwbjr13
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swarfrat
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I'm hoping for a report from Jay on his Thinline + carved spruce top. If it matters for any routed semi-hollow, I'm hoping it would matter there (though I'm not sure if carved top or thin top would matter more)
I have a warmth Tele Thinline ( no fholes) ( pic ) and to a degree the maple top does have an effect on tone, although I believe the hollow body has more of an effect.
Unless the top is allowed to resonate ( like a acoustic or carved top jazz box) the effect of top woods is quite minimal . Most Semi-hollows are laminated tops to prevent resonance that leads to feedback , they also laminate to prevent top cracks.
Unless the top is allowed to resonate ( like a acoustic or carved top jazz box) the effect of top woods is quite minimal . Most Semi-hollows are laminated tops to prevent resonance that leads to feedback , they also laminate to prevent top cracks.
swarfrat said:
Me too! I hope it gives it more of a jazz box type sound. My original plan was a double f-hole L5S, but the Gibson style bodies were taken out of the showcase and custom order webpage. I'm not expecting a full-blown huge bodied jazz box tone, but a little would be nice.
JD0x0
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I like to think the 1/4'' Pau Ferro top on my tele changes the tone somewhat compared to a softer wood. Drastically? No, but I do like to think it has a small effect. The bridge is sitting directly on this wood and I'd think there'd be a slight difference in attack and sustain of a hardtail bridge sitting on a very dense wood such as Rosewood, Pau Ferro, Ebony, compared to sitting on relatively soft woods like Basswood/Alder/Poplar. Very small however, there's so many other factors that'd make a larger difference, but I wouldn't say top wood is completely insignificant, it likely wont 'make or break' a guitar.
musicispeace
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I got a chambered poplar strat body with a maple top off the showcase (I remain convinced it was either a canceled custom build or there was something unusual someone ate at Warmoth that didn't agree with them when they came to work one day) that finally became a guitar several months back and compared to my two other strats that are solid bodies with no lam top I don't think there is a difference I can detect. It just looks nice in translucent white.
Ace Flibble
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The first thing you that should be highlighted is that it's impossible to tell what kind of tonal change any part of a guitar causes unless you can compare identical instruments where only one thing is changed at a time. If more than one thing is changing, you can't say that a change in tone is because of just one of those differences.
For example., some people think that a flame maple top gives a warmer sound to a Les Paul than a plain maple top. But unless you can guarantee the electronics, hardware, back and neck woods are also 100% identical—and I mean identical—you can't pin a difference in tone just on one being a flame top and the other being plain.
This is why a lot of pickup manufacturers have just one or two guitars that they use to test all of their pickup designs. By keeping the guitars the same, they can really hear the difference in different pickups.
If you're ordering a body, you can not tell what the woods sound like. The guitar doesn't exist yet. You don't have an otherwise-identical guitar to compare it to.
The second thing that must be stressed is that any difference you hear between two guitars is often completely covered up by how you play, what your amp is or simply the room you're playing in. Experience also factors in; the less experience with different guitars you have, the less likely you are to notice small changes.
A 20-year-old playing a shred solo in a metal band in a 15,000 person arena isn't going to notice the difference in tone from one guitar to another, unless they make a really huge leap like a super-Strat with active humbuckers to a vintage Telecaster. Conversely, a 55-year-old progressive jazz player in a small club of 50 people probably is going to notice a lot of difference between guitars.
Generally, the cleaner you play, the cleaner your amp is, the larger you speakers are, and the lower your volume, the more you'll notice differences between similar guitars. The louder you crank things, the more aggressive your playing gets and the bigger the room is, the less you're going to notice differences between one guitar and another similar one.
All that said, even in perfectly clear 'testing' environments, the differences between top woods in electric guitars tends to be minimal. From a technical, scientific perspective, the things that matter most is whatever the majority of the wood is, the general construction of the guitar, and, of course, the electronics used.
I will point out though that Warmoth's tops are usually laminates, and these can have a tonal shift consistently attributed to them. The more you layer up wood, the less resonance you're going to get out of that area of the body. The less resonance, the quicker the highest frequencies bleed off. Again, this is coming from a purely technical and scientific point of view. Whether or not you'll actually hear those highest frequencies fading quicker is entirely subjective. Warmoth does seem to do non-laminate tops occasionally, but the majority are laminates, even what they refer to as 'double laminate' tops.
In cases where the top is not a laminate, slightly more of a tonal shift can be attributed to the top wood, but it still tends to be minimal. Only in guitars where the top wood is just as thick as the body and neck woods (e.g. some PRS and ESP guitars) is there ever really a noticable difference in tone.
For example., some people think that a flame maple top gives a warmer sound to a Les Paul than a plain maple top. But unless you can guarantee the electronics, hardware, back and neck woods are also 100% identical—and I mean identical—you can't pin a difference in tone just on one being a flame top and the other being plain.
This is why a lot of pickup manufacturers have just one or two guitars that they use to test all of their pickup designs. By keeping the guitars the same, they can really hear the difference in different pickups.
If you're ordering a body, you can not tell what the woods sound like. The guitar doesn't exist yet. You don't have an otherwise-identical guitar to compare it to.
The second thing that must be stressed is that any difference you hear between two guitars is often completely covered up by how you play, what your amp is or simply the room you're playing in. Experience also factors in; the less experience with different guitars you have, the less likely you are to notice small changes.
A 20-year-old playing a shred solo in a metal band in a 15,000 person arena isn't going to notice the difference in tone from one guitar to another, unless they make a really huge leap like a super-Strat with active humbuckers to a vintage Telecaster. Conversely, a 55-year-old progressive jazz player in a small club of 50 people probably is going to notice a lot of difference between guitars.
Generally, the cleaner you play, the cleaner your amp is, the larger you speakers are, and the lower your volume, the more you'll notice differences between similar guitars. The louder you crank things, the more aggressive your playing gets and the bigger the room is, the less you're going to notice differences between one guitar and another similar one.
All that said, even in perfectly clear 'testing' environments, the differences between top woods in electric guitars tends to be minimal. From a technical, scientific perspective, the things that matter most is whatever the majority of the wood is, the general construction of the guitar, and, of course, the electronics used.
I will point out though that Warmoth's tops are usually laminates, and these can have a tonal shift consistently attributed to them. The more you layer up wood, the less resonance you're going to get out of that area of the body. The less resonance, the quicker the highest frequencies bleed off. Again, this is coming from a purely technical and scientific point of view. Whether or not you'll actually hear those highest frequencies fading quicker is entirely subjective. Warmoth does seem to do non-laminate tops occasionally, but the majority are laminates, even what they refer to as 'double laminate' tops.
In cases where the top is not a laminate, slightly more of a tonal shift can be attributed to the top wood, but it still tends to be minimal. Only in guitars where the top wood is just as thick as the body and neck woods (e.g. some PRS and ESP guitars) is there ever really a noticable difference in tone.
